Sector outlook

In view of the ongoing disruption to supply chains and the increasing economic impact of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the market research institute Drewry has significantly downgraded its forecast for container throughput in 2022. All shipping regions are affected. Growth expectations for global container throughput in 2022 have been halved to 2.3 % as compared with the outlook in December. For the Europe shipping region, estimates have dropped from their original 6.0 % to just 2.0 %. Experts believe that the Northern European ports will be particularly badly affected by the ongoing difficulties with punctual departures, leading to congestion and longer waiting times. Owing to the ongoing disruptions to the logistics chain and the resulting drop in productivity, Drewry expects weaker growth in throughput volumes for the year as a whole than forecast at the start of the year.